Who’ll win the Wisconsin ad war?
February 17th, 2008
Will going negative turn it round for Hillary?
One of the great joys of the internet, YouTube and fast video streaming is that we can keep up to date with rapidly moving contests like the current ad war between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama in Wisconsin.
In the latest stage of the fight for the Democratic nomination the Hillary camp has gone negative - the latest TV ad featured above. This is a big gamble. There’s a massive danger that this approach could turn many voters off. Even worse it could make the supporters of your opponent even more determined to vote.
The is how the Obama camp has retaliated as both sides spend big money buying expensive air-time.After eight consecutive defeats Clinton badly needs to impede the Obama bandwagon on Tuesday. Even cutting the margin down to a few points could be hailed as a great victory.
In the Democratic nomination betting the Obama price has eased to 0.44/1. Thanks to my 50/1 and 33/1 bets on Obama for the White House placed in 2005 and 2006 I have been able to take other positions so I do very well now whatever happens. I’m not totally convinced that Hillary is out of it yet.
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Obama’s is definitely a lot more slick and despite being an attack ad, doesn’t come across as one at first glance. Hillary seriously needs to up her game if she’s going to start making any headway.
Reposted from previous thread.
ukpaul @ 107.
Those Pennsylvania match ups will be a blow to Hillary, especially as the demographics favour her will also enforce Obama’s line of attack as to electablity with Democrat voters and the Super Delegates.
The new Oregon numbers are also bad for Hillary -
Clinton 42% McCain 45% - Obama 49% McCain 40%.
The latest Gallup tracking poll has Obama at his largest lead over Clinton 49/42 -
Is this another sign that a tipping point is close and that Obama has broken the voter deadlock?
http://www.gallup.com/poll/104383/Gallup-Daily-Tracking-Election-2008.aspx
The ‘Baltimore Sun’ looks inside the Clinton campaign -
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nation/bal-te.clinton17feb17,0,1052310,full.story
3 Someone asked the same question on Friday when Rasmussen had Obama leading 48-40 , strangely they didn’t yesterday when the lead was halved . Clearly he is and should be a hot favourite but around £1,000 has been wagered today on Betfair on Clinton at 3.3 to 3.45 odds .
NR to be nationalised!
Mark @ 5.
That’s a valid point. But as usual it’s the overall trend that will mark out a critical point in the contest. And the trend has been for Obama to take a lead over Clinton in the nationals, pull away in the elected delegates, out finance her, peel away Super Delegates from Hillary and begin to ‘win’ the match ups against McCain.
Wagering on Betfair as a trading option is sensible. 3 and bits is skinny to me although the Iowa Markets are around 27 presently.
Gabble @ 6.
Have the Liberal Democrats taken power in a coup and not told us?
NRGBPLC WOW!! NuLab gets ooolllddd!
6. Link?
10 “BBC has learned” in its latest news flash line. So someone has briefed the BBC.
10 - BBC running headline. Promises details soon…
8/10 - On BBC News now
6 .”NR to be nationalised!”
Will Bradford and Bingley follow?
Woo-hoo!! So I am going to own a bit of Northern Pig-in-a-Poke. All for a mere £100 billion - when the market cap was buttons. Brilliant! What economic miracle-workers Brown and Darling are. How I look forward to them repeating the trick with Bradford and Bingley, Nationwide, The Derbyshire, Royal Bank of Scotland, Barclays…..
No wonder the Poles are leaving.
Suppose the delegate count is inconclusive. Do we know what the procedure would be? Is there any possibility of Michigan and Florida voting again, last, this time with votes that count? I’ve seen it losely said ‘they do it all again’ but it would have to have a much compressed timetable, perhaps all on the same day?
Lets’s nationalise everything, put the taxes up and give the money to unmarried mothers!
Ssuper Labour!!!!!!!!!!!!!
14. No it wont. You show me the logic behind the question.
This will do a bit of damage. How much remains to be seen.
The toon needs a new sponsor as well as a new team now then.:(
The NR thing could very well end up being Labour’s ERM moment if this carries on.
14 - What’s Bradford & Bingley got to do with anything? Don’t tar them all with the same brush.
Betfair have just opened markets on the March 4th primaries .
Has Darling offered to resign?
19 - Statement from Darling at 4PM!
Will the government carry on loaning people 125% of the value of their homes? - http://www.northernrock.co.uk/mortgages/together.asp
New Labour - New Usury
Ave it 08 @ 17.
Are those new Watford Conservative Policies?
If Hillary is perceived as the first to have gone negative, I think that risks playing very badly with the Super-delegates. The trick if you are a superdelegate - and want the favour of POTUS in years to come - is to time your joining the bandwagon of the eventual winner before it appears inevitable. I think there is a real risk for Hillary that the recent trickle of converts to Obama will become a flood, before real damage is done to the party. Texas and Ohio may well have become irrelevent in a few weeks time.
19 - the Toon: sponsored by Gordon Brown!
LOLOLOLOLOL
Labour = most incompetent goverment of all time!
25 - LOL
New policy: All unmarried mothers have to pay £25 ‘congestion charge’ to enter central London!
“What’s Bradford & Bingley got to do with anything?”
High rates of money market borrowing, aggressive growth during the bubble with lots of lending to the amateur Buy-to-Let market (aka the UK’s sub-prime), 70% fall in share price, write-downs due to sub-prime exposure…
21&22.Why now on a Sunday afternoon and not at the Despatch box in Parliament???!!
30 - market sensitive innit.
I haven’t commented on the US elections much basically because before January I’ve not taken much interest in US politics. However, it seems to me that potentially the biggest winner out of the ongoing battle between Clinton and Obama could be John McCain and the Republicans.
Just as McCain profited within the GOP race because there were so many candidates promoting an alternate view, now that that has been resolved and Republicans acquiesce behind him so he can profit while Obama and Clinton slug it out.
Whoever, is leading the Democratic race (currently Obama) has now to face two opponents firing criticisms from different directions. Whereas McCain only has the leading Democrat to aim at. Whoever is leading the Democrat race is using up resources that might have been better used fighting the Republicans in the fall.
By making his potential opponents fight on two fronts he may be able to force a wedge between them and split the Democratic party to a certain extent. Most importantly he can limit the number of independents that turn to the Democrats and that may be significant.
That does not necessarily mean that McCain can win the GE but it does mean he has the opportunity to limit the damage to the Republican party and in doing so perhaps dampen some of the enthusiasm within the Democratic Party before the real campaign begins.
On NR - Oh dear the best laid plans of mice not men…….
29 - and have they borrowed a penny of the BoE? No.
20 Alex, the Bradford and Bingley has lost a quarter of its market value this past week. Doesn’t look good…
27 So along with the rest of us the supporters of Manchester United, Sunderland and Middlesborough get to be sponsors of Newcastle United….
Troubled bank Northern Rock is to be nationalised by the government, the BBC has learned. From bbc website
34 - and that has never happened before?
How much are the Govt going to pay for the shares?
27 - Don’t start, I’ll just go and throw myself off the cliff now…
Newcastle United - The first team to be sponsored by the British Government. You couldn’t make it up!
Back on topic, doesn’t Darling have to give a pre-budget report this week? Could be a very bad week for him if so.
35 Keegan arrives - and soon the club gets sponsored by the Govt. Truly, he is the Messiah…
Sky’s initial take on NR
http://news.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30400-1305760,00.html?f=rss
32. The republican machine has apparently concluded Obama is their opponent and as much as some internally dont like Mccain there is plenty of that machine that is going to be behind him.
Interestingly McCain has already gone for Obama’s rhetoric and lack of solidity suggesting that giving hope with words only and nothing to back it up is spreading fallacy.
The old goat means business.
Question - if Northern Rock Mortgages are taken onto Govt books, will that reduce Net Govt debt?
37 “How much are the Govt going to pay for the shares?”
For each Northern Rock share you held, you will be given four in British Leyland….
Which Minister gets Northern Rock for their day to day portfolio?
43 - HAHAHAHAHA
38 - next club to be nationalised = WATFORD
Will they dramatically cut savings rates?
Footsie will probably be off tomorrow!
Vince Cable made a very good case for nationalisation. He comes out the best on this. Wonder how the markets will respond.
47 - you can get odds-against at betfair
31.”30 - market sensitive innit.”. Yes it is, but I don’t imagine this was dreamed up this weekend on the back of a fag packet either?
Not surprised though, it shows the same level of incompetence displayed throughout this slow motion car crash.
48 Brown should have signed up Cable in the Transfer Window….
33 - probably not, although we now don’t know - we do know someone other than NR borrowed from the Bank of England, but after NR borrowing caused the run, they decided not to announce who any more.
For the taxcpayer tocome out of this alive they will either a) have to sell off chunks of the banks assets or b) wait untila bank crippled by its loan obligatiosn gets on a more even keel.
Do you think they’ll be another run on the bank tomorrow? Who would want money in the Govt?
BTW amusing to get to see what financiers and financial reporters wear at weekends
48 Cable though recognises that nationalisation is not an end game, it would have been better than unlimited credit and protects taxpayer cash but it does not resolve the future of Northern Rock.
So whither now? Its not proved possible to sell it as a going concern, will that be more possible in 3, 6, 12 months? Will Treasury have to manage it down and sell off the mortgage and deposit books? Can the charitable arm still operate - with taxpayers cash? Seriously can it continue to sponsor NU?
55 - Quite. There are bigger issues at stake
Perhaps the financial geniuses Brown-Brownshirt and Darling-shirt-off-back have a great idea to fix their fincial mess.
By having their own Nationalised Bank they can make Billions - because banks make billions right.
At the same time they introduce Sharia Law Bonds so that Terrorists can plan their future in Britain under a Global Caliphate.
Perhaps they’ll merge it with the Post Office.
Leaves the prospect of the Govt. having to (i) abandon the shareholders (including many, many small shareholders in the NE who bought them) and (ii) evict those of its aspirational voters who bought into the dream of home-ownership.
Well, some excitement in British politics at last.
On topic though, I hope that Clinton gets slaughtered at the polls the way that she was in South Carolina after using ads like this.
Negative politics is what has got us into this mess, I’d like to see it, and its perpetrators, royally destroyed. Then I can rest happy (and the UK politicians who are the same should be equally disgusted with themselves).
Despite the plaudits for Vince Cable, it’s going to be interesting to see which opposition party is actually best placed to exploit the Govt’s problems. If the Govt suffers simply because of the images that Nationalisation conjures up, then will the LibDem line of “about time too” work? Or will the Tories be better placed by always rejecting Nationalisation, even if they didn’t ever go as far as to talk of any specific alternatives?
I have to say I’m more disappointed than anything myself. I dont think the government had a lot of choice but to enable intervention which many other central banks around the world would have done.
The mistakes that the government made however were:
-Putting political needs before good monetary sense.
-Getting too involved, too deep and too long. I believe that the crisis sbroke on a Friday and I thought a pain as it was it wasnt a massive crisis and would stabilise. I even looked at its shares to buy. By the Sunday, under a fuller analysis I realised this was a major league problem (no i didnt buy the shares). I’m sure the government knew it too but they kept on lending.
-By lending so much for so long they crippled a takeover because a straight commercial effort was skewed by the need to meet government requirements. A straight takeovern early on might have done the job, though the shareholders woudl have got nothing (JC Flowers bid pretty much rated the shares at nothing), the job losses woudl have been sizeable. Put together that would have looked pretty ugly PR wise but it would probably have worked.
-The belief somewhere that somehow private companies would play ball and give the government what they wanted. Despite the warm words from Branson, there was no way private concerns were going to meet the demands if they wanted to make any money for years to come. That has come to a head and the Branson bandwagon within government has come to a halt because Branson has done his sums and he knows he’s committing commercial suicide to deliver the pre-requisites, assuming he actually can deliver.
-This leading with government demands (understandable given the sums involved but the sums should not have been committed) in turn caused an almighty problem with some bidders dropping out because they didnt think they were being a) given realistic terms and b) were not on a level playing field (the Brnason bamdwagon again)
The othert issue, probably going to be ignored is that the bank had a business model that simply didnt make the best of the good times. If you look at the banks offering some very good interest rate deals on current and saving accounts recently theres a reason, they were trying to draw cash in to hoard because they saw problems. There wasnt a huge sign that NR was doing the same in the market, though sosmeone can disavow me of that.
Discussion about what the Govt will give the shareholders.
Does this open the prospect that the Govt will be effectively paying money for a company that was already mainly funded by itself?
NR - a pretty dreadful day for the government, if only because they made it so clear they didn’t want to go to Nationalisation.
Even the word - nationalisation! - reminds everyone of ugly lefties in donkey jackets. Ugh.
Labour know this very well - so they were desperate to avoid it. Yet it has happened. Oh dear. What a ridiculous series of disasters this Brown government has presided over.
The main problem here, for Brown, is not the economics - it’s the PR.
The government is now perceived as being sh1te. Not evil. Just shite. Clownlike. Stupid. Inept. Girning. Labour ministers have big red noses you can squeeze to make a hooting noise.
Indeed, Alistair Darling, as I understand it, even has a special plastic flower on his lapel - that squirts water in the face of Jose Manuel Barrosso every time there is an Ecofin meeting.
To be laughed at is, politically, worse than to be hated. Major was doomed once Steve Bell’s vest-tucked-into-y-fronts image took hold of the public consciousness.
I’d say Brown’s Labour government is now entering that fatal minefield.
Say “Gordon Brown’s government” and people just laugh, contemptuously.
So now we know that nationalisation is how Brown is going to end “boom and bust”. Nothing goes bust - because the Govt. rescues it. Sorted.
Today’s Rasmussen tracker very slight narrowing of Obama’s lead over Clinton now 47-44 yesterday 47-43 .
63. There may well be a new issue of shares at some point in teh future at some level like 10p a throw or something.
Anyone still holding may as well hope they can sell in the morning though I suspect the shares will be suspended pronto.
Those institutions (and small shareholders) that bought in may well be talking to their lawyers again as we speak.
I understand shareholding is a gamble and you can lose but equally theres nothing wrong with fighting your corner as a shareholder. They are not all massive institutions and given that open share trading is a major driver in a free market economy this wont look good.
The Nationalisation timing is interesting.
It looks very likely Bradford and Bingley is next.
Britain could not underwrite 2 northern crocks at once.
Nrock. Why Sunday?
Why not go the whole hog and get it out in an interview on Sunday with Marr? Isn’t he official now. Bit like the Dimbleby’s and royal weddings.
Darling going to have to shovel alot of s*** and quickly before Balls comes in.
Darling is famous for his loyalty. This worm will not turn [-over his boss].
66. Remarkably consistent polling all round for Wisconsin but the problem for Hillary is that she has a very small group of apparent dont knows to now pull into her camp. Somewhere in all the movement of voters espcially post Edwards drop out and uncertains who have made upo their minds i suspect there is a section of Hillary support at one time that has moved to Obama. If she can shift them she can win, just. It will be very tough but all she needs is a wobble at the point where they have to make a call and she has a chance.
The only other advantage she has is that i think her core support is more robust. Obamas coalition is doing him well but i suspect needs all teh motivation it can get to keep it up.
I have take a bet on Hillary in Wisconsin at a decent price hoping to bet/lay as I’m not sure, as yet, she can do it.
38. Maybe, but in the 90s Tranmere Rovers were sponsored by Wirral council.
Job cuts announced, i think.
Bradford & Bingley will not be nationalised IF it came to it, comprendez?
Compensation for shareholders being decided by independent valuation of company based on the company being run without Govt support.
Ie. None?
So the decision on the ownership of Northern Rock has now been taken after some 6 months dithering. But what are they going to do with it?
Best thoughts are that in two or years time there will be little remaining of the company and the tax payer will be left with a bill in the region of £10bn. The necessary rationalisation has been delayed by several months and further delay will result in even less of the business remaining and a much higher bill for us all.
Agree nationalisation is the best solution now - but it should never have come to this. NR was the first big test that the regulatory regime put in place so quickly by Gordon Brown was severely tested, and that regime failed. The BoE had protested over a decade ago that it needed to retain its position as regards regulation of banking but Balls and Brown knew better.
They should have recognised when the queues formed, that Northern Rock as it stood was finished and had the expertise and means available to have it taken over quickly - but they had got rid of that and not replaced it. Now it could be years before its dealt with properly and the Government will be facing legal challenges from debtors and shareholders as regards its actions.
BCCI, Barings and others failed have, the cost was born by shareholders, commercial debtors, the BoE working with financial institutions to manage the distribution of business and mitigate losses. Banking failures aren’t unknown.
69. To have it in place for the markets on Monday. Its not just political, its logistical. Doing it in the middle of the week would have been even worse.
Looks like the shares are suspended already but I havent seen confirmation as I didnt watch the statement.
73 Nobody was sugesting it was socialist person.
Bradford and Bingley is heading the way of Northern Rock. This may mean withdrawal queues outside their branches. Labour increased Britain’s national debt by 10% to prop it up. Labour has to sell Britain to Islamists with Sharia-Law Bonds to pay for it. It is not possible to repeat the process for 2 banks at a time. So, NRK is nationalised before B&B hits the proverbial.
Which lucky company or agency is going to get the pleasure of auditing Northern Rock accounts this year?
Curious. Alistair Darling still believes Northern Rock’s loan book is good. You would think the Treasury would, since September, have had the time to do some research on this and tell him it isn’t.
78, Can you show me how it is heading the same way as Northern Rock? It coudl be but you havent explained why at all.
Can you show me its business model? can you show me its assets versus its debts and where it gets its funding from and how that breaks down?
In an interview with Andrew Neil, Geoffrey Robinson said the new regulatory system was designed by…. Ed Balls…. Though not with a view to crippling Darling, I suspect.
The irony will not be lost on the weasel.
Nor the worm.
81. Certainly. I shall start preparing the documentation for you immediately. It will take about 3 weeks to 1 year.
Dont go away.
74, None or almost none…figures of 10p a share or less possibly.
This was one big announcement that Gordon inexplicably decided he didn’t want to make himself.
83. You cant then…..so you’ve nothing to back up your supposition.
I wonder will there be more withdrawals of money by depositors?
Apparantly Gordon only gave the go-ahead a few hours ago, the Chancellor wanted to announce on Friday. Oh my.
80 In reality , the vast majority of the loan book IS good . Even though a number of the loans were risky and unwise , most of the borrowers will make every efforts to keep up repayments and in the small % of cases that they fail the loans are backed up by bricks and mortar . The 55 billion that is supposed to be at risk is in reality even in a worst case scenario no more than around 5 billion .
Yokel, I’ll help you out.
In the last 12 months Bradford and Bingley lent out £8.3 billion. They took deposits of £1.3 billion. 6,170 of their customers are currently in arrears, with loans up to 110% of the purchase price of the property (so given they’re a buy-to-let specialist that’s now 160% of the value of new-build city centre flats).
Robert Peston believes it’s a certainty that hedge funds will sue the Govt over nationalisation.
NR ends in farce and embarassment, as one or two posters predicted some months ago.
Mark - look at the number taking payment holidays. More interestingly, walk down to your local courts and see what percentage of the applications for possession orders are “Northern Rock versus x”.
When you lend 125% of the value of an asset in a market where the asset price is falling, saying it’s backed up by the asset is of little consolation, even if instead of asset you use the words “bricks and mortar”.
91. There may be a case for arguing that the government created a false market in the shares, but I wouldn’t give legal action too high a chance of success.
Didn’t Northern Rock sell off the most proiftable part of its loan book a month or so ago?
Straying further off-topic, given that Northern Rock offshored a chunk of their assets to Jersey, what chance do the vulture funds who bought in have of keeping that bit out of the nationalisation deal?
90. How many loan customers do they have in total?
The other thing is how much of their money is coming from the wholesale money markets?
It’d be interesting to see how much those arrears are because although they may have arrears that doesnt mean all will stay that way, or indeed that others will not start to go into arrears.
If B&B gets in trouble it’ll get bought.
Clinton’s superdelegate lead is narrowing….
http://bp2.blogger.com/_qJGvnOCBQcA/R7etEjGXnNI/AAAAAAAAAC0/08cqOWeMNbs/s1600-h/image001.gif
From
http://demconwatch.blogspot.com/
97 - Yep, people forget that Northern Rock might have been taken over, had it not been for the Govt agreeing with the BoE’s view that “banks must be allowed to fail”. Until they changed their mind.
Wonder what sort of salary Ron Sandler has managed to negotiate?
96. Which is why the government extended guarantees (to lenders to NR) to keep NR’s credit rating high with the rating agencies. If we are talking about the same Jersey based investment vehicle, it had a proviso that enabled investors to get their cash back if NR’s credit rating dropped with the agencies. Given I heard figures of 50 bil were raised through that, no one could afford the rating to fail and possible demands for instant returns of cash.
100. A huge one, and good luck to him.
96
Vulture funds, what do you mean? Are you talking about ord. shares?
93: yes, but now ask yourself - ‘what proportion of Northern Rock’s loan book originated in the last year?’, and ‘what proportion was at 125% LTV?’.
I suspect the answers are (a) no more than a third, and (b) no more than a third. That means that only 10% or so of the book ’super-high-risk’, and even there the bank should ultimately recover 70%+ of the money lent.
The problem here is (a) NRK has a silly business model dependent on wholesale funding, (b) the government would not allow a purchaser in September last year to fire the entire staff of NRK and close all the branches. If the government had been willing - at the beginning of the crisis - to allow a purchaser to close down NRK and live off the book run-off, then we wouldn’t be in this situation. It is merely that the government - cynically and foolishly - tried to prevent North-Eastern job losses at the general tax payers’ expense.
99. Morgan Stanley reportedly has an interest in BB.
85 “It is right that I make this hard and difficult choice, yes, I do not flinch from the long term and hard choices as those in the party opposite do. It is a decision for the long term stability, hard earned stability after the disastrous boom and bust policies of the Tory years, policies Mr Cameron supported, we remember well his skulking in the shadows as Britain was forced out of the the ERM.
This decision is one for the whole of the United Kingdom, stronger together, weaker apart. So let us first send out this message; we will not flinch from long term tough choices. This government is spending more on ensuring banking stability than any previous government, 18 years, yes, 18 years of Conservative Government and not a single penny towards protection and guarantee of hard working peoples savings. Labour makes your savings safer; £100 billion invested this year to that purpose, to ensure our communities safer, savings secure”
86 In the same way we predicted the outcome of Northern Rock.
The same way we predicted Brown’s tax raid on pensions would destroy pensions.
The same we predicted open uncontrolled invasion immigration would result in high house prices, low pay, oversttretched services & terrorism attacks.
Nobody needs a socialists to say prove it. The good news is the Labour experiment is approaching its endgame. Labour was out of power for 18 years for a reason. They gave you the benefit of doubt and all you did was prove their suspicions right.
Tomorrow, the sun will rise. I can kinda figure it out all by myself.
107. I take it that socialist you refer to is me?
Oh this is too much.
If B&B was going to get bought ‘if it got into trouble’, how has it not already been bought? It’s sitting there on the stock market with a big “60% off” sign hanging on it.
As for Morgan Stanley buying it, I assume that was satire. You do know Morgan Stanley hold Tier 3 capital (mark-to-myth, or ‘magic beans’) to the value of more than two and a half times their total equity?
By vulture funds I mean specialists in buying shares in companies in distress, or very high yield bonds. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vulture_fund
Didn’t Alistair Darling have a NR mortgage? I hope that other politicans have declared their interest.
Given that Lloyds TSB took a look at NR’s loan books and walked away, there must be something toxic which put them off.
Can NuLab fall below 30%, so much for Brown’s fiscal arithmetic.
109. Simply a story, hence the word ‘reportedly’.
I just don’t understand how the loan book can be good, yet no one wants to buy it!
This also reinforces the Brown dithering line. Not only from Septembet but the fact that this was put to Brown as the only solution on Friday but it was lunchtime today before he made his mind up.
Also how des this fit in with competition rules from both here and Europe? A government owned bank is surely unfair to other banks.
103: I’d guess he’s referring to the two large hedge funds who recently bought something like a quarter of the shares as a speculation. They’re likely to lead any legal action, but I’d have thought it on stony ground, and I doubt if we should lose any sleep on their behalf. Without knowing the state of the negotiations it’s impossible to judge sensibly, but I doubt if a Tory suggestion that this is a Return to Clause Four will really wash with the public, as it’s obviously a special case, and reluctant at that.
On topic - the ads seem to me a score draw on issues - both sides are obviously quoting selectively. Clinton’s is more memorable because it cites a specific fact, that Obama has refused a Wisconsin debate - Obama’s response that hey, he’s debated a lot in other places, is damage limitation. But I wouldn’t think either ad was a deal-clincher, nor vicious enough to prevent reconciliation later.
104.How much of the decision making back at the beginning of the NR crisis was based on political expediency due to a possible Autumn GE, rather than sound long term management of the nations finances?
112 It is not that noone would want to buy it , I would buy it at the right price ( if I had the money ) but my right price would certainly be too low to be acceptable .
208 - yes, Yokel, you are an evil hireling of Labour.
On topic - Clinton’s camp say this goes ‘all the way to June’ - I’m still buying more ‘Republican win’ at Betfair, which I think I will be able to sell at a profit as we get to May and McCain has been campaigning for three months as the candidate, while the Democrats continue to run attack ads against each other.
208
Glad to see that you think 100bn in the hole is a laff.
112 “Also how does this fit in with competition rules from both here and Europe? A government owned bank is surely unfair to other banks.”
You really think a Bank run by Brown and Darling is going to send alarm bells running through the corridors of Europe? Oh yes, it is really going to mop up business….even the Swiss Bankers will be quaking at the new kid in town.
Today has dismantled the notion of Labour’s “economic competence” -and with it, the only reason that Brown could muster to surface from the Bunker. He will have to be dragged out, screaming, to face PMQ’s…
To respond to the query above the charitable arm, from Darling’s statement:
“Ron Sandler expects to be in Newcastle tomorrow to discuss the business and meet staff and their representatives. His proposals will also cover the Northern Rock Foundation, where he will commit to guaranteeing a minimum income of £15m per year in 2008, 2009 and 2010. This will be paid directly by Northern Rock, and would be a condition of any sale if it were sold in this time.”
I could post the whole statement here but it’s long, and having criticised others for lengthy posts I’d better not. Key point apart from those mentioned above is that the intention remains to sell to the private sector as soon as a suitable opportunity arises - the suggestion is that the taxpayer wlil get more out of that than the fire-sale offers being made at the moment. There is some detailed analysis of the two bids - essentially says Virgin’s looks convincing but they want too much profit, while the alternative bid injects less capital and looks less secure and more dependent on government guarantees.
My God. Taxpayers Alliance being invited to comment on Sky.
This article in the Times this morning seems a little dated now.
Northern Rock bank bosses offer Alistair Darling 10% stake to save bid
115. An acceptable price = a solvent price I presume. Dodgy investment for the taxpayer then.
OT Cyprus presidential elections.
After 98% counted, incumbent President Tassos Papadopoulos is set to be eliminated after the first round after taking 31.77% and trailing former Foreign Minister Ioannis Kasoulides with 33.54% and Communist leader Demetris Christofias with 33.27%
Vince Cable will be massively boosted in the respect he has (which is already large) by correctly predicting that this was the best way out of the Northern Rock mess. The questions that will be asked now are: 1. Why did it take some long for the Govt to act
2. How much has been lost as a result of 6 months of dithering
3. Did Brown/Darling put off nationalisation for so long simply because the Lib Dems suggested it?
The Tories have been lost on this issue; knee-jerking to start with because they didn’t understand what nationalisation actually meant, and were stuck in the battles of the 80’s; and then pushing a solution that would have given the private sector all the benefit, and the public sector all of the risk.
PS Will the Lib Dems get a poll boost because of their position on NR? Financial competence isn’t a reason people usually give for voting Lib Dem (stop chuckling!
) - will it become so in the future?
126 No. It will just remind people that the LibDems chose the wrong new leader….
Vince didnt say it was the best way - but the least worst! Northern Rock is a disater but there is no sense in letting Branson or anyone else make a killing at our expense.
Look forward to hearing Osborne bleating that nationalisation is a disaster when he has no other suggestions to put forward.
Lib Dem proposed a bill to enable Nationalisation some time ago. I am afraid job losses will be fairly large, not because of nationalisation but because Northern Rock bank is broke. A payment of more than about 50p to shareholders would be scandalous!
120 Nick, firstly I think that The Northern Rock foundation has a good record and purpose and to make any new ownership take on the commitment of the now defunct Northern Rock plc sensible. The covenant though was for 5% of Northern Rock profits to go to the Foundation - there aren’t any profits just debts. It’s now a taxpayer subsidy to a charity.
The question that is still unanswered is whether the Government has learned from this and a new regulatory regime, fit for purpose, will be set up. The recent announcements from Darling do not entirely convince.
129 meant to drop the pseudonym.
125 - As i said above, I doubt it’s so clear cut.
Assuming the public react negatively, the question is whether this is as a simple result of the negative connotations of “Nationalisation”, or whether it is because of the dithering and the Govt not getting their preferred solution.
It is reasonable to think that the latter has mostly already been factored into the polls, the former however is more likely to benefit the Conservatives who opposed it.
If people think negatively of a (forced) nationalisation, it is unlikely that they are going to grant political credit to a party that have been campaigning for it from day one.
117. Just because she says that to stop the flow of delegates now doesn’t mean it will get there. If she doesn’t perform in Texas/Ohio then the maths of the main race will be against her. If the superdelegates make it clear they’re not going to overturn it for her, she will drop out sooner rather than be humiliated. She wants this Presidency badly, but she’s smart enough not to ruin her Senate career over it once she knows the game is up.
128 so Vince says it is a disaster an offers no alternative but that makes him different from Osborne saying it is a disaster and offering no alternative?
The alternatives were available early on, they aren’t now and both Lib Dems and Conservatives have made that point. It’s a disaster that will cost tax payers money at a time when public finances are stretched.
Anyway, in other news.
Anyone holidaying in former Yugoslavia this summer?
People should also remember the Democratic party won’t split over this fighting. The camps of each campaign are actually pretty small seeing that its only been six months of a split, this isn’t the Blair-Brown decade long saga, polarising the whole party. It’s also not an ideological split and the whole party will come behind the nominee.
This is unlike the case on the Republican side, where a significant faction of the party still isn’t satisfied with John McCain. To appease them he will have to make concessions which will be used to paint him as a George Bush type by Democrats come the general election.
That’s fair, Socrates - I anticipate she’ll do well enough in Texas and Ohio to keep going, but not well enough to be reinstated as favourite. I have very much bought into the Kos arithmetic, or “math”, which says she can win Texas by 10 points but come out roughly evens on delegates. She’ll probably cry again when that happens…
Well what an unbelievable day, can’t wait to see the reaction in the City tomorrow morning! What a shame that Snowflakes doesn’t defend the economic record of the government on here any more! Once again full marks to the MP for Twickenham, and what a great shame that there are no other MP’s who have shown the required economic nouse since this crisis began, Gideon and DC included in that!
Hopefully the pictures of a solemn looking Darling will be replayed over and over again as many times as Lamont walking down from the steps of the Treasury on Black Wednesday, I noticed there was only the bland HM Treasury sign behind Darling, you could have put new Labour new Britain behind there as well! Were nationalised banks in NuLab’s vision of their new Britain!
Osbourne quoted by the BBC:
“After months of dither and delay we have ended up with this catastrophic decision. We now have the situation where the government will be making decisions on whether or not to foreclose on people’s loans in a falling housing market.”
Interesting point - so does the Government make people homeless or does the Government subsidise people’s mortgages with taxpayers money in order to save political face? Seems to be a lose lose situation to me.
112. Woody662
It’s partly caution. At a time when the housing market is in decline Bank’s generally are attempting to reduce their exposure to housing debt. Also a lot of the key players have taken significant hits and are trying to re-build their capital bases. Even if NR has a strong book there are unlkikely to be many potential buyers. Yes there may be a few prepared to buy NR’s assets at a hugh discount but the Government and Shareholders would have opposed this.
138 - operational independence. The Government is no more going to make the decisions on whether to foreclose on people’s houses than it makes the decision what to show on Dispatches, even though C4 is publicly owned.
136. The result on March 4th won’t just depend on delegates though. If she can show she’s still a force popular vote-wise then the superdelegates might not turn against her. But if the popular vote is less than ten points in both states then she might get a few phone calls threatening big endorsements for Obama - Gore, Pelosi etc - causing her to bow out.
140. That may well be the reality of it but will people see it that way?
After all I can’t remember a Government not being blamed because of negative press about a nationalised company or industry.
128. Surely it is better that Richard Branson makes a killing and we lose no money, than Branson making nothing and us spending billions?
After hitherto failed to specify any meaningful strategy to manage the NR fiasco and are now saying that they will not support nationalisation is political opportunism of the first order. HM’s Official Opposition is not meant to simply gainsay the Govt but demonstrate how they would manage crises were they in charge. Unless they come up with a credible alternative to nationalisation, they will look extremely foolish.
It’s inconceivable, surely, that the Govt will have no overall strategic say in how Northern Rock is being run in future.
124. Any tips for the run-off, Andrea?
140 It is the Government that people blame for closing Post Offices, it’ll be the Government that has to defend the layoffs, branch closures, repossessions.
143 No it is better that Branson makes nothing and we make a little bit eventually but there are many other permutations that are possible .
144 - I doubt it. The political cost to the Govt on this will be on the image of the thing, not the detail. In that sense nobody who is at all neutral will care what the Conservatives would have done instead.
146 Who cares. That is excellent news for Cyprus and the world. One less rabid nationalist running a country and a greater chance that Greek and Turkish Cyrpriots and by extension their big brothers can bury the hatchet finally
The truth is, Alistair Darling has played this absolutely right.
He was right to seek a private buy-out, at the same time as making it clear that nationalisation was a genuine option, and not to accept any bids that were not in the taxpayers interests.
The time and money spent on this process has not been wasted because a private buyer will have to be found eventually anyway. Many of the ground rules for a potential sale have now been laid out and the government have demonstrated real strength in not allowing themselves to be panicked into either giving away taxpayers money or NR jobs.
149 That is true but on another level it is rather worrying that the person likely to become Chancellor in the event of them winning a GE does not seem to have a clue as to what he would have done and can only spout rhetoric calling up the 1970’s .
149 - I would agree if the Tories went along - albeit very reluctantly - with nationalisation, but to not provide an alternative will encourage the media to ask ” what would you do” with a defeaning silence in response.
Sensitive to the charge, Osbourne is now saying on BBC News(18.26 hrs) that the BoE should lead a plan to protect interests of savers and taxpayers and then bring the bank back to market in due course. Not sure how this differs from the proposed nationalisation.
152 - On the other hand, I would hope that it is the civil servants and experts who provide all the options, with a Chancellor only choosing between them. I would be even more worried if a Chancellor was supposed to do it all himself, which is essentially what any shadow has to do. It’s hardly surprising that an Economist by trade would appear to shine in this respect.
150. I certainly won’t be shedding a tear for Papadopoulos!
From Darling’s statement:
The Bill gives the Government a general power to acquire the shares in, or assets and liabilities, of institutions.
Just to be clear is this bill intended just to nationalise Northern Rock or is there a wider agenda here?
Full text of Darling’s statement:
http://tinyurl.com/3bja88
143. Spot on.
I fail to understand the Lib Dem stance on nationalisation and how they can benefit from this issue other than possibly in the very short term. The Government potentially faces hugh embarressment on this issue in relation to the UK’s financial standing and the management of NR’s book. Also either the Panel will come up with a high level of compensation for shareholders for the taxpayers to meet or the shareholders will go to the courts where issues relating to the Human Rights Act 1998 will be raised. Don’t forget a large majority of the shareholders are individuals based in the North East.
154. Given that this matter has been under review for months you would have thought that a switched on shadow chancellor, who may lack the skill set of an economist, would have pulled together a knowledgeable team who could advise him of realistic alternatives.
154 (con) - the most important characteristics in Govt ministers, IMO, are decisiveness and consistency, and ability to defend any decision once taken.
Ministers take over Govt departments all the time knowing next to nothing about their respective roles. It is not that which determines whether they are considered successful or not.
Incidentally today’s Mail on Sunday carries a story hich first appeared on my website on Wednesday under the title “Jack’s Eye”
(www.vote4barry.blogspot.com)
156 - hmm. Mysterious. Are the govt not allowed to buy shares at the moment?
161. I’ve no idea but I can see why it would be considered an unfair practice by the commercial sector.
Whatever the intent, I just get an ominous feeling reading that statement. For example what other organisations do the government think they will need to intercede with?
I hardly see that legislating in such away promotes confidence in the British economy?
158. Frank that’s rather naive. It not a matter of economic theory but a matter of financial intelligence. The Government has spent a lot of tax payers money paying Goldmans and others to research the options and quantify same. Such intelligence is not available to the opposition.
Amid all the blame throwing, one has to ask why there is no action that can be taken against the Northern Rock Management. Would there really have been no court cases if this had been in America?
The correct way of evaluating the Virgin and Thompson bids would be against a properly worked out “base case” of what the Government intended to do with Northern Rock once it had been nationalised. In no way can the base case be the status quo as everyone agrees that is not sustainable.
There has therefore either to be a plan of what the Government now proposes or else the evaluation process of the competitive bids was flawed. Osbourne and Cable were talking about an audit of the mortgage book now being a priority. However, if this has not already been undertaken, the base case cannot have been correctly developed. There was also talk of Sandler starting to work out what he is now going to do.
I cannot believe that this is the case and there must be a well developed course of action already developed including rationalisation and job number proposals . If not, then the whole process is even more of a shambles than thought.
Did any one else notice that during the Q&A session with Darling on SKY, the camera started to slip and it looked as though he was sinking into the ground.
What like a way of raising revenuw when they sell it off?
Mike - agree with you about Hillary. It’s dicey, and I have to confess I haven’t come back in on her yet though I’m very tempted. I think she could still take the nomination but it’s on a knife-edge this one and may well go close to Denver. The key is once again enough damage limitation in this round for her to stay in the race through to March 4th. But is it worth the bet? Possibly!
165. I think the business plan was going to be a combination of the management buyout and the virgin bid.
158. Alex’s argument was, I hope I don;t misrepresent him, that Cable was helped in his determination that nationalisation was the least worst option because of his previous role as a professional economist and no doubt he did sound out other whose view he respected. Osbourne could have put himself in the same situation, but it would appear he hasn’t. Political preference aside, I would imagine most people would opt for Vince rather than Osbourne as chancellor because not only his competence, but his boldness in stating a policy decision and sticking to it.
Robert Preston in Comment is Free
Ventriloquist and dummy
It was Darling that announced Northern Rock’s nationalisation, but few can doubt Brown was pulling the strings
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/peter_preston/2008/02/northernrock.html
168. Are you saying the Government has bought its business plan from Virgin and Thompson, except it has paid the merchant banks rather than the authors?
Osbourne has repeatedly failed to spell out, when asked by News 24 what the Tories would do differently. Just lots of soundbite bluster about dithering. To make their breakthrough leap to a possible Government in waiting something more will be needed. I think a lot of people will see Conservative opposition to temporary public ownership of the Rock as too opportunistic. The fact that the Lib Dems will be lined up alongside Labour reinforces this.
I’d like to see a few polls after this announcement, if only to discover whether the voters are so inured of Govt incompetence, that even a disaster such as Northern Rock’s nationalisation doesn’t make any waves.
Slightly OT:
Clinton and McCain both have double digit leads in Ohio according to my projections.
http://thepoliticaltipster.wordpress.com/2008/02/17/ohio-projections/
172. temporary public ownership
It is only temporary if the Government can sell it and they haven’t had much success so far. As far as I am concerned this nationalisation is ongoing.
175. You can always find a buyer, it’s about how good value it is for the taxpayer. Clearly the Government appeared so loathe to go down this route that I imagine the offers on the table must have been pretty bad for the taxpayer.
175. The government has had several offers, but none of them were good enough. I imagine that will change after a period of temporary nationalisation.
171. I don’t know, i just read that they had a business plan that was similar.
172: Agreed, Osbourne is looking foolish saying that this is a terrible thing to do because he has no other options. He looks even more foolish every time he says “this is a 70’s throwback”. It just reminds people that he was in nappies back then, and just doesn’t have the economic experience to run the treasury.
Can someone explain to me the material difference between nationalising the bank now and doing it 5 months ago (aside from the greater possibility of legal action by shareholders succeeding 5 months ago)?
178 - Is he saying it’s a terrible thing to do, or a terrible thing to happen?
‘Gordon Brown repossessed my home’!!!
BBC Guide to Northern Rock Nationalisation:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7249655.stm
As the new chief executive Ron Sandler has said, it is “business as usual” in the sense that you should continue to pay the mortgage as you normally do.
The only difference now is that, if you missed payments and ended up having your home repossessed, ultimately it would be the government which owned your home.
Even the BBC sees it the same way as Osbourne (my earlier post)
More people will listen to the Beeb than will listen to Darling.
172. What utter, utter piffle.
The Labour Party was wholly in support of ERM membership. Yet when the pound fell out of the ERM - did Labour stand up to take some of the blame?
Of course not. Nor should they have. Oppositions are there to Oppose; govermments carry the can.
The pitiful series of mishaps that is crippling this government will, rightly, affect the popularity of the government. To go round saying: oh the Opposition were agreed with this is just lamentable. Nor will it work. Voters don’t really give an aeronautical f*** what oppositions say, they just want the government to appear competent and trustworthy.
When you lost that reputation for competence and trust, you are screwed. And that’s when voters elect the Opposition into power.
172.”I think a lot of people will see Conservative opposition to temporary public ownership of the Rock as too opportunistic. The fact that the Lib Dems will be lined up alongside Labour reinforces this.”
I am not sure about that analysis, I mean a Conservative party opposed to the nationalisation of a bank will not be a surprise to many, so therefore its hardly opportunistic.
What does it matter what Osbourne and the Conservatives would do? Does anyone remember what Gordon Brown was saying around about the ERM time. Of course not or else he would never refer to it because he was a chief cheerleader for the ERM. Brown and Darling are in the poop and no spluttering about Osbourne soundbites will deflect away from that.
Watch them with the sound off. Hillary’s makes the mistake of featuring a picture of Obama constantly. Obama’s just shows Obama.
The only graphic mentioning Hillary in Obama’s are the words “Hillary Doesn’t”. Go back and watch Hillary’s - it’s “Hillary Won’t”, “Hillary Didn’t”. Obama’s takes negatives from Hillary’s ad and turns them back on her.
Final results from Cyprus presidential elections (which won’t probably interest anyone) have Ioannis Kasoulides at 33.51% and Demetris Christofias at 33.29%. Incumbent Tassos Papadopoulos eliminated with 31.79%. The top 2 will go to second round.
187 We Brits being internally focussed again I’m afraid Andrea
Good to see Papadopolous gone though.
177 “The government has had several offers, but none of them were good enough. I imagine that will change after a period of temporary nationalisation.”
Why do you “imagine” they will get “good enough” offers after a “period of temporary nationalisation” particularly with the economic situation likely to deteriorate significantly for the foreseeable future?
What is Northern Rock’s forward looking relationship with the Bank of England and/or Treasury funds ?
Shock horror - Sporting Index has kept its Next GE Seats market open, despite the NR story being infinitely bigger than some regular monthly opinion poll issued probably at least 2 years prior to the holding of the next GE.
189. Because some of the tax payers money will have been paid back, meaning it will be cheaper.
Law of economics:
Something costs less more people want to buy it.
Because some of the tax payers money will have been paid back, meaning it will be cheaper.
How do you work that one out? !!!!!!
183. The ERM debacle and the nationalisation of Northern Rock are not at all comparable. The insecurity many voters felt about the Rock was around whether their deposits were secure. The Government gave that assurance. I know many on PB regard nationalisation as a fate worse than death, but I think most people are much more pragmatic than the Redwoodite idealogues that charm these pages.
193. Forgive me if i’m wrong, but the government wanted a large amount of the taxpayers money paid back straight away, if after nationalisation they have less exposure, they’ll want less money paid back.
I think at this stage nationalisation is the best option.
The government’s going to end up being spit-roast over this. You have Cable saying we should’ve nationalised it months ago, and the Tories calling it a catastrophe.
Of course if they’d immediately made it plain deposits were guaranteed and given Lloyds TSB a proper hearing when they were interested they might not have ended up in this situation.
Worse for Brown is that his USP was the economy. Since his coronation we’ve had a slide on the FTSE, and now £100bn has been added to the government’s books, and not in the black.
Gallup’s daily tracker shows slight fall in Obama’s lead over Clinton now 48-43 .
The point about Cable is that his performance on NR, added to his economic experience and sure-footedness more generally, gives the Lib Dems the upper hand on economic policy in ANY future negotiations over a coalition government, especially with the Tories but also to some extent with Labour. This would have been unthinkable in the past - for instance, Denis Healey had no trouble stitching up John Pardoe during the Lib-Lab Pact, because civil servants simply dismissed Liberal proposals as ill-thought-through and unworkable.
Another Wisconsin poll, but like Rasmussen conducted 2-3 days ago, from the Milwaukee press.
“A poll by Research 2000 conducted for Madison’s WISC-TV showed Obama with 47% of the vote and Clinton with 42% among likely Democratic voters. The remaining 11% were undecided.
That lead is within the poll’s margin of error, and the sizable number of undecided voters could also swing the vote. The poll of 400 Democrats and 400 Republicans was conducted Wednesday and Thursday. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 5 percentage points in the head-to-head matchups.
Among Republicans, John McCain led with 48% to Mike Huckabee’s 32%. Ron Paul placed third with 7%, and 13% said they were undecided.
192/5 - How do they pay money back that they haven’t got? Surely doing any more than servicing the interest will require profits?
198. Good point. I think many on Labour’s side could imagine Vince Cable as a future Chancellor. In fact some might welcome it
200 (con) - that’s assuming they’ll still be required to service the interest. Will the Govt loans still appear on the books as loans? Or Shareholder funds? Can the Govt lend money to itself?
O/T
I can’t BELIEVE Clinton has decided to go so negative over Wisconsin.
What an idiot.
This plays right into Obamas hands and allows him to portray her as the “old politics” - bang on strategy.
Hasn’t she learned how this plays yet? Was South Carolina not enough of a lesson for her?
The 1.43 on Obama on Betfair is starting to look exceedingly good value.
195. But the Government hasn’t actually got any money back - effectively it has committed more money without a guaranteed return to ensure that Northern Rock stays afloat.
200. I assume the profits from NR, or the selling of assets will pay back the tax payer.
191
oh PtP, obviously showing you up in public for your lack of understanding and poor knowledge of political spread betting has hit a nerve with you. My most humble apologies. Why don’t you have a bet? Go on, prove them all wrong - take advantage of them - now’s your chance. Something tells me they’ll be watching.
206 - 191 is PfP not PtP. Your lack of understanding and poor knowledge of Politicalbetting.com has shown you up.
203 - I think Wisconsin was a testing ground to see if it would work in the future states; it’s despicable, whatever the reason. The time we move beyond the politics of fear is the time when we can start to build from the poor, divided place we are now.
206. Do you mean PtP or PfP? If you’re going to be rude, make sure you get the right one…
205 - a) that assumes they make profits b) that assumes that their assets cover their liabilities to the Govt, and is obviously not consistent with running the business as a going concern.
208. It all just feels like the last roll of the die for her team.
A quick flick through the comments on this site might suggest it is Cameron/Osbourne’s job/responsibilty to sort this out.
I expect blogs might have looked the same after Black Wednesday…
In this instance….I am not a financial expert [to say the least!] but isn’t the Opposition proposing to nationalise NR like saying we are going to use taxpayers money to buy a company whose books we haven’t seen, let alone had expert advise on?
That means to support the Govt you have to trust them. Blindly.
Not to be opportunistic.
Not to be party political.
Not to be irresponsible, dilatory, short-sighted….
I think Brown and Darling have got themselves into such a fix over Northern Rock because of their own lacl of intellectual self confidence. At the end of the day , getting rid of Clause 4 should not have meant that Labour would rule out Nationalisation under ANY circumstances - rather that it would no longer take place as a matter of course for reasons of pure ideology! Moreover, much - not all - of the nationalistion in the 1970s - British Leyland and Rolls Royce by the Heath Tory Govt - arose as a result of failure in the private sector.They did not fail because they were nationalised - they were nationalised because they had already failed!
Oh well, another day, another disaster. Labour, already in a dodgy position, will not recover from this.
210. Yes it does.
Back to the 70s with Labour!
197 - I think this shows Hillary does still have a solid base of support in the Democratic party. Even after this series of primary wins for Obama she has still not slipped below 40%. Ultimately I think Obama will win but she is standing up remarkably well compared to a movement candidate. (Compare to Guiliani whose polling nosedived from December onwards.)
203 - There are two things at work here.
1) She doesn’t have much choice. She has to change the story, and knock some of the shine off Obama. In that sense it is a sign of desperation. But it also shows she and her campaign haven’t given up hope.
2) The add isn’t actually that negative, not for American politics anyway. Obama is going to get a lot worse come his way if he is the nominee. Also, I don’t think it is directly comparable to SC. There the negativity was personal and focussed on race, these are more about policy differences which I think are fair game. The problem she has is that the mid-western states are places that negative campaigning is least effective, they don’t like it very much at all.
One factor to consider. McCain and the GOP are now focussing on Obama as their opponent and will try to frame him as a shady Chicago left-winger who cannot be trusted as C-in-C. Does this impact on the Dem nomination race? If McCain is attacking Obama and some of it sticks does that make Democrats think that Hillary is a safer option? Or does it reinforce his image as the frontrunner and encourage people to rally round him?
That is the caution that I would have about Obama being the most electable. The polls show him doing consistently better but he hasn’t had much negative campaigning to deal with yet, most of the Clinton stuff has been relatively tame. He is less proven than Hillary. He is still the best shot but he has downsides as well.
yes apologies for the confusion i mean Peter From Putney.
Being rude about whom? Simply stating facts alex.
Markets should be suspended due to new polls overnight - leaving prices tradable is the quick way to the poor house not to mention amateurish. How would the politics trader explain to his superiors that he has allowed several hundred pounds worth of buyers of tory seats when a fresh poll is released giving them a whopping lead?
It is rather rude to criticise the organisation that puts up the market in the first place. Please correct me if i’m wrong, but i cannot see Spreadex offering anything…i can’t see IG offering a mayoral Index nor can i see them offering anything to do with very popular presidential elections.
Here we have Sporting accommodating the demands of the betting public whilst the company’s competitors fall way short of the mark – all that some folks can do is moan…I find it astonishing. It is clear to me who is the more dominant and the better bookmaker.
218 - You should be more careful which posts you refer to. I didn’t say anything about rudeness.
218.
‘Here we have Sporting accommodating the demands of the betting public whilst the company’s competitors fall way short of the mark – all that some folks can do is moan…I find it astonishing. It is clear to me who is the more dominant and the better bookmaker.
Do you work for them or something???? Our job is not to be nice to bookmakers, it’s to take their money. Until you get that, I don’t think you’ll quite fit in Ripper.
198 Jack,
You ignore the lilkihood that for a lot of reasons discussed above (e.g.see 157 above)Nationalisation of NR will shortly be seen as a massive failure. While I don’t see this as materially harming the Lib Dems it is unlikely to be helpful to them.
208 - I think you’re wrong to call negative (or contrast ads as those who deploy them like to call them) ads despicable. Obviously it is preferable for candidates to talk positively about themselves, but elections are not referendas on individuals - they naturally involve comparisons. Therefore a candidate pointing out policy differences, or differences in record is acceptable. The problem is when they are personal or use tradegy inappropriately, and SC was very stupid for the Clintons. Similarly the Willie Horton ad used by Bush Snr was despicable as was the smears against McCain by Bush Jnr. I just don’t see what Clinton is doing now as being anywhere near that level.
215. I should point out that it isn’t actually neccessary for the Rock to make a profit, it just has to cover staffing and premises etc. Because money is supplied by the government as opposed to the private sector, by covering the costs (i.e. paying the money back to the government) the government can get a return even if NR’s profit after covering costs is negative, because it has a £55bn loan on it’s books.
That’s not very well expressed but i’m tired.
216 “Back to the 70s with Labour!”
I’m getting out the green Oxford baggies as we speak. Are the IMF on stand-by?
194. “The ERM debacle and the nationalisation of Northern Rock are not at all comparable.”
I completely agree. Black Wednesday lost the Treasury £3.4 billion, a lamentable waste of public money.
The nationalisation of Northern Rock has exposed the taxpayer to upwards of £100 billion. That’s the equivalent of at least 29 Black Wednesdays. They’re in entirely different leagues.
223. Profit is revenue left over after paying costs.
Government loan is a cost. If Northern Rock has £30bn of Revenue, and pays the government back £20 bn with £10bn on running the company. Then the profit is -£25bn, (from the £55bn loan) but the government still gets a return.
223 I think you would find the other banks and building socities closely following the accounting practices in HMG’s Northern Rock to ensure no competitive advantage arises.
If they want to sell it again it will need to be profitable in those terms.
216 - Well the music was arguably better in the 70’s!
226. That should read -£35bn, but as i said, i’m tired.
225. Does anyone REALLY believe that bringing Northern Rock into temporary public ownerships is the equivalent to 29 Black Wednesdays? Utter cack.
223. Yes it could technically show a book-keeping profit but suffer a large opportunity cost. However current Government policy is to normally show the “notional” cost of capital in public sector accounts. I don’t think this is a key issue. I suspect as has happened with the accounts for most Government Departments and with many Quangos under Labour we won’t see the accounts for some considerable time. However the Government may suffer a lot of reputional damage meantime.
194/225/230 - It doesn’t really matter whether the two are “comparable”. The point being made was that the opposition doesn’t have to have a credible alternative when economic events go against the the Govt, to benefit politically.
Crisis what crisis?
I see that this time it is the Labour PM who had to turn back from his holiday.
232. Sure. But as Andrew Rawnsley’s sound article in the Observer today points out that eventually ‘the Tories have mastered the art of being an Opposition. But that won’t make them a Government.’
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/feb/17/conservatives
226. Given Northern Rocks profits last year were £500 million I believe, how long will it take to pay back the £55 Billion using your ‘model’?
239. It doesn’t have to be equivilant to be a disaster from what the governmeet doesn’t recover. It seems to me there have been three major diasters for Brown;
1. The election that never was.
2. The loast data fiasco.
3. NR nationalization,
I get the feeling this third one will be the straw that breaks the camels back.
220
Has nothing to do about being nice its about trading, doing business, having an honest bet. Making short, irrational and darn right factually wrong comments is offensive (aimed at more than one blogger here).
But your quite right, there’s nothing more i love to do than ’slaughter the bookie’ and clean up…but under fair rules.
Hope Muumy’s nearby to change the nappies of Tory posters tonight:lol::lol:
225 Black Wednesday cost peanuts, released the UK economy from the straightjacket of fixed conversion rates and was the springboard for over a decade and a half of growth.
Joining the ERM, keeping interest rates high during a period of recession to retain parity cost the economy untold billions, caused major unemployment and led to negative equity and bankruptcies.
Curious isn’t it that Major won an election against the background of the greater disaster but lost his popularity for good because of the event which precipitated the cure. Lamont was right to be singing in his bath; where he lost my respect is that revealed he didn’t believe in the previous policy, which had so damaged the British economy. Major, Lamont, Kinnock, Smith (and Brown) all firmly behind such a damaging policy.
So in this case it is not nationalising Northern Rock that is the real problem, it is that Brown, Balls and Darling have let it drag on for 5 months, with untold millions were billed by City advisors, that when other options were open to serious bidders like LloydsTSB & JC Flowers these were put second to a non-banker (given privileged access to the PM on a trip to China), that the tripartite regulatory regime (intrinsically linked to BoE independence and therefore hard for Brown/Balls to admit was wrongly implemented) failed its first major crisis. Billions have been provided in credit, with interest rolled over. No wonder the City no longer rates Brown or Darling.
238. The same remark could be said of Labour MPs in marginal constituencies
225. Yes exposure to losses is not the same as a loss (e.g. as arising from Brown’s sale of our Gold). However the exposures could dent the UK’s credit ratings and contribute to a worse Sterling crises than the one we had on Black Wednesday.
239
235. No idea. My “model” was just pointing out Economic definitions in practice and had no bearing on reality.
Northern rocks profits aren’t very relevant, we need to look at revenue and cost. If they make 1% profit then they’ve had a revenue of £5000 million or 5 billion. Which would then take them about 11 years to pay the loan off.
238. I bow to the intellectual prowess (sic) of your post. Oh dear Oh dear!
239 I agree , the failure was not the nationalisation but the 5 months delay in doing the inevitable . We on here being for the most part politically knowledgeable can see this but how will it be seen by the majority of the electorate , I don’t know but I suspect the impact will in fact be pretty negligible and certainly not as a major disaster for the government .
234 “the Tories have mastered the art of being an Opposition. But that won’t make them a Government.”
What will, though, is the current Government diminishing into an Opposition.
The public will wonder why the Govt has given £55 billion to a company that can’t find a buyer.
243. So you’re projection is that Northern Rock can somehow find an extra £5 billion a year in revenue? Where from?
245 Mark, you may be right but it depends on media reaction.
Point I was making was that Black Wednesday has become shorthand for the whole ERM debacle rather than an isolated event at the end. So the nationalisation may be presented / become shorthand for the 5 months incompetence, wrapping up in Business Editors minds not only NR but the IHT/Non-Doms, the CGT changes. But it might not.
248. I was working from the numbers you gave me for profit and the assumption that the profit was 1% of total revenue.
Ted @ 239
In fairness to Lamont, he should not be judged more harshly for accepting the Treasury in 1990, encumbered, as it was, with an ERM policy in which he did not believe, than should Chris Patten for taking on the Poll Tax at The Department of the Environment the year before.
250 - Where did you get 1% from. Maybe (probably) i just can’t read a balance sheet, but in 2006 it looks like Profit was over 50% of revenue.
I’m assuming that the Government aren’t really expecting any of their loans to be paid back until a buyer comes in.
* income statement, not balance sheet
249 Agreed , to a great extent , media reaction will count , but will the media be even mentioning NR in 2 weeks/months time or next year or more importantly will the media that does mention it be the media that the vast majority of voters pay any attention to . The only government failure that had any real impact in that people at work and in the pubs actually talked about it at the time was the lost discs fiasco but now several months on it is not mentioned at all .
252. It was pulled out of my head as a ballpark figure for the difference between Wholesale and Commercial interest rates. A link to their income statement would be appreciated.
http://companyinfo.northernrock.co.uk/downloads/results/res2006PR_AnnualReportAndAccounts.pdf
250. The actual figure was about 9.5% in 2006. Stil lyou did not explain where the extra money would come from. Whatever the figure, the Government still has to recoup the loan from funds above and beyond NR’s current costs. Therefore unless they cut back on NR costs it has to come out of profits which are likely to decline in the short-term.
Unless they can make Northern Rock sufficiently attractive in the short term to private sector buyers (dubious at best) I can’t see how they are going to recoup the money anytime soon. In fact I doubt the taxpayer will ever recoup much of the ‘investment’ made.
This is an act of last resort to ensure the economy doesn’t further worsten and limit the damage to Labour’s crumbling economic reputation.
257. What extra money?
I thought i’d explained this earlier, the government loan comes under costs and thus replaces existing costs.
My assumption on profit was bad, but my working was fine, wasn’t it?
254 Except Mark the lost discs aren’t forgotten they have become part of the narrative. Its the narrative which is the thing. If tomorrow there was an outbreak of a disease which was traced to a government agency not doing its job properly it wouldn’t get the same media treatment as it did last summer - the narrative has settled.
In two years time, unless Brown manages to change the story, we will be in the pre-election campaign. He hasn’t much time to do it.
258. How does it replace existing costs? Which ones? These loans are new liabilities that have been taken on this year.
My goodness, no-one seems to have taken any accounting lessons here!
Northern Rock has one primary source of revenues, interest on loans.
It’s costs divide between interest on its funding (i.e. deposits, the Bank of England), staff, and other. Of which interest is by far the largest portion.
Assuming NRK issues no new loans, it will see the size of its balance sheet shrink as (a) people pay off mortgages, and (b) people move home. People paying back principle is *not* profit. But it will allow NRK to pay back its own sources of funding. NRK does not have to make £500m a year to pay back the £50bn, it merely needs its own customers to repay their mortgages. The average lifespan of a mortgage (median) in the UK is about 8 years. Therefore, almost irrespective of profitibility, half of NRK’s borrowings will be paid off. Compared to mortgages rolling-off, and people moving home, the losses of NRK will be irrelevent.
We, the taxpayer, will probably lose a billion or two over the debacle. But we will not lose £55bn. Had Darling and Brown acted quickly at the beginning, we would have lose nothing.
From the Northern Rock Income statement,
Gross Income was 4,972.3 million (my 5000 million revenue was pretty close then)
I realise i meant to type 10% when i typed 1%. I apologise.
I think 10-15 years to pay off the loans would seem accurate.
259 Don’t quite agree this time Ted , the lost discs did become part of the narrative and are still in the concious memory of most voters but the story is no longer part of daily chat at work or in the pubs and will gradually fade from memory . What is noteworthy to me is that no other subject that on here we considered far more important including the on/off election was discussed at all .
Time for a terror alert anyone?
260. NR borrows short, the credit crunch meant it could no longer do this. So the BoE replaced the private sector as it’s money supply.
250 G - take a closer look at the income statement for a bank. Revenues are typically stated net of interest expense. If Northern Rock’s cost of funding (ie interest to the government) exceeds its returns (ie interest income - mortgage payments) then it will have negative interest income and probably negative revenues (revenue= net interest income + non-interest income)
261. A clear summary. So noting your assumption you believe that the main intention of the Government is not to sell the company on as Darling suggested but to wind down the mortgage business naturally for several years until such time as a company is willing to take up the residue of business?
266. I’m looking at page 72 of the income statement.
Gross Interest Income = 4,972.3
Gross Interest Expenses = 4,123.2
Gross Administrative Expenses = 247.8 + 1.8 = 249.5
Net Profit = Gross Interest Income - (Gross Interest Expenses + Gross Administrative Expenses) = 599.6
I haven’t been able to read all the financials, but the net revenue stream is closer to £800m rather than £5bn mentioned above - difference is the value paid out to investors etc. What is not obvious from my cursory review is the annual value of capital repayments against outstanding mortgages, this being the major source of repayment against the £50bn+ that is owed to the Treasury. The new CEO has already stated that NR will be downsized over time presumably by flogging off portfolios of assets to other institutions. I wouldn’t be overly surprised if the downsized entity will be flogged off within the next 3-5 years.
John Redwood on Mr Darling digs an even bigger hole by nationalising the Rock.
Isn’t that 100 years to repay the loan out of profit rather than 10, G? The Government after all still has to pay the interest on the money it has borrowed to give to Northern Rock, even if we don’t double-count it.
Of course, the plan must be to pay it back by refloating (breaking up and selling off might be more sensible, but would look like an even bigger admission of failure).
But a lot of the assets have already been “flogged off” to institutions such as Granite. The rump of NR is only liable if any of these mortgages turn bad… Oh dear some of them seem to be on the turn.
We are going to lose a lot of money. But no sense in losing even more by letting Branson et al get their snouts in the trough!
Well, the logical thing to do would be to sell the depositer base to HSBC or someone else with a large retail network. You’d get a letter saying “Lloyds TSB has bought your accounr, etc.”
Every branch would, of course, be closed. The head office would be downsized and would deal solely with the administration of existing mortgages. 18 months or so should see the worst of the ’silly loans’ default. What remains should have a fairly normal default rate. This could then be packaged up and sold on, with the administration taken over by anyone of a number of financial institutions.
As I said, total losses would probably be in the region of £2bn. (Assuming that a third of loans were at silly LTVs, a third were issued in the last 18 months, and there is an ultimate recovery of 75% on default.)
Surely, surely, surely the Government gets the assets of Granite (this is what I thought I asked earlier, but the discussion turned to the Northern Rock Foundation - I know Granite is also technically and outrageously ‘charitable’, but still).
268 The reason why NR had to get government assistance was because they could not borrow from other banks at the low rate they had been used to. The point I was trying to make is that compared to the 2006 figures the interest expense may well have gone up considerably (hence the net interest income would be negative and revenue could be negative).
In any case the metric to look at is what price to book the government pay. If they pay less than 1x book, the business could be wound down, the creditors repaid and the government get its money back, otherwise they need to fix the businesses strategic problem - NR borrows on a short term basis to fund long term lending.
271. I thought that 1 billion was now universally known as a thousand million. The old million millon definition was replaced.
263. You live a very isolated life…what nonsense.
I hear moans and groans about all the things you apparaently believe the ‘public’ has forgotten about all the time. Labour’s inability to keep data safe is absolutely sunk into the genral narrative of every day life.
Anytime someone has to provide some sort of data or have some sort of corresponsence with the government there are jokes and complaints. Its everywehere. Even the most uninterested voter is reminded of all of these things all the time.
More imporatntly, lost data discs, economic woes and Brown’s general incompetence and election debacle are rehashed almost weekly in a varietry of media sources. On top of that is the general sleaze that effects all views of politicians but given the February polls seems to have stuck to Labour more.
Also the media narrative this evening has been almost entirely negative, including on the BBC. (which is something as it seems to have turned into the Brown Broadcasting Corporation in recent weeks)
The very clear message across all the media and the news is that message is that Nationalisation of NR is bad and that this is bad news for the government. Millions of people are watching thiw as we speak. The media reports are also referring to the Lib dems as supporting nationalisation and I am convinced given the general negative tone this will play badly for them.
G, it is a thousand million.
Fifty five thousand million is still one hundred times (ish) six hundred million, not ten times
278. Revenue was five thousand million, fifty five thousand million is eleven time five thousand million. The Loan is paid out of revenue not out of profit. Because BoE is the money supply now so NR will not be borrowing wholesale.
…and thus will be paying back BoE as expenses not the wholesalers.
But if the Government takes the debt onto its balance sheet, the level of public sector borrowing rises to cover it, and therefore the Government is paying the same amount of money Northern Rock previously was, to service that debt.
If that were not so, the Government could abolish tax and simply get the Bank of England to print some debt-free money anytime they wanted something - it would certainly cut the cost of PFI…
277 My life is far from isolated , I work in a factory full of ordinary voters and go to pubs at least twice a week . Most voters do not mention or talk about politics at all , you are describing what you hope is the case but is nothing like the reality of everyday life for most people . You are correct in saying that voters have a low opinion of all politicians because of sleaze but even so it is not something people think worth bothering discussing .
280 - It’s good to see the former Iraqi Information Minister has found work again. Do you do the books for Fidel Castro when you’re not at Kim Jong II’s? Northern Rock is obviously a total lemon otherwise the City would have snapped it up. Capitalism seeks value and there was none in NR.
281 Robert Mugabe did that last year to afford pay rises to public sector. Zimbabwe inflation is now around 66,000%.
283. Ummm… What?
I used figures from the northern rock income statement? I showed everyone my working?
There were offers made and rejected from, JC Flowers, Olivant, Virgin, Lloyds and a management buyout?
What would you like me to say? “NR is doomed and the socialist nutjobs will be out on their arses come the next election LOL”?
279 G- NR had £97.8bn of liabilities in 2006. They had to pay £4bn just in interest on that debt - hence only £1bn less admin expenses is available for capital repayments. jdc is right it would take 100 years to pay back the debt out of net income, if they want to pay back debt, they’d have to sell assets…
However the point of a bank is to be levered up and to have debt indefinitely. The value in NR is in having a going concern that is able to lend out money for a higher return than lenders require in interest.
Anatole Kalentsky in the Times doesn’t mince his words
“Absolutely, incredibly, utterly wrong!”
“Why should a Government that has consistently refused to offer public funding for potentially viable commercial projects of real national importance - aerospace, public transport, nuclear power - now be spending tens of billions on supporting a bust mortgage bank? Is it because Britain is short of mortgage lenders, lacks employment opportunities for bankers or suffers a deficiency of financial innovation?”
“All in all, what Mr Darling announced yesterday was a financial and political disaster of almost unimaginable proportions. The Northern Rock saga did not end yesterday; the fiasco has only just started, with the Government now officially in charge .”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/anatole_kaletsky/article3386753.ece
286. yes, but they are paying it out of gross income not net income. In 2006 NR paid wholesalers 4,321 million. It will pay that money in 2007 to the bank of england. NR used to borrow short (from the private sector) to lend long. Now it is borrowing long, from the bank of england.
Can people stop repeating the enormous fallacy that NRK’s loans are to be paid back out of profits! That’s not how banks work. NRK is owed c. £95bn by mortgagees, and owes a similar amount. Historically, it has made money (i.e. profits) by having a lower cost of funding than the rate at which it lent. So long as (a) it was able to fund itself cheaply in the wholesale markets and (b) mortgage delinquency rates stayed at below 0.5%, it was profitable. Of course, having been aggresive in lending (125% LTVs etc), once b began to change, a did too.
282.Mark, normally I would agree with you that most voters don’t mention or talk about politics at all. But in the case of the lost data and recent scandals over funding, I have noticed people who don’t normally bring up politics, doing just that.
Nationalisation of NR and the debate over whether it is a good or bad idea will resonate with voters.
o/t PA 17/2/2008: Obama and Edwards Meet in NC
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/feedarticle/7317236
288 Dude - just because it’s the government doesn’t mean it’s an interest free loan. 50bn of debt at even 5% interest generates an interest expense of £2.5bn. The repayment period is an irrelevant.
287. LOL! I wouldn’t want to be a number 10 typist tomorrow morning after The Clunking Fist reads his press.
BTW, anyone else agree with me that the BBC’s Rober Peston is awesome? I just love the way he speaks. Very camp, yet authorative. They should have this guy reading the news.
288 - that only works if the Bank of England loan is interest-free! It can (on paper) be interest free to Northern Rock, or (on paper) interest-free to Government, but if it’s both, then it’s time to start buying inflation-linked bonds.
291. Actually frank you’re ON TOPIC not off it!
Ah Gordo has his monthly press conference tomorrow.
Should be a hoot.
If taxes go up, the cost of living goes up, pay rises are held back…etc people will look for a reason. The state of the world economy will only be relevant, if they cannot find an answer closer to home.
Anything that feeds into, ‘its the economy and they’re stupid’ will play.
293 Gordon reads the press first editions; imagine he’ll be on the phone again tonight to Editors (unless they don’t accept his calls any more)
298. I should imagine they put their answer phones on these days. Who want to be woken up in the middle of the night by an insomnic, ranting lunatic?
291. He’s already met Clintons people. He’s doing the rounds, all er two of them.
Daily Express has decided not to cover Northern Rock but instead lead with “HOUSE PRICES HIT NEW HIGH” on the front page. Ho hum. Not actually true, either.
296 covered most of what he will say in a post upstream
Difficult hard choice…stability…long term interests…no panic measures..decision for long term stability…..taxpayer funding protected..stability…long term..make the hard choices blah blah blah
Semi on topic - does anyone know if there is a market Senate races at all?
293 No, I don’t agree. Peston is not remotely “awesome”; he is a pompous arse.
303. Not yet as far as I know.
305 Shame… Thanks though.
193 If ind Pre ston’suse of emphas isa bitdis tract ing.
http://americanresearchgroup.com/
Clinton with 6% lead in Wisconsin by ARG who have not done too well in this campaign.
304. “No, I don’t agree. Peston is not remotely “awesome”; he is a pompous arse.”
I never thought I’d agree with you on anything but I do on this.
Peston has to be held partly responsible for whipping up the panic that led to the run on NR. His subsequent ‘analyses’ have been injudicious at best. Breaking down the NR loans by each taxpayer and suggesting that they were at risk of losing this money was downright dishonest.
Still, I expect he’ll receive many awards from the idiot wing of our news industry.
301. I wonder if the Express will manage to weave Diana and the weather into that house price story?
309 blaming the messsenger
309. Well I still think he’s funny, so there.
308 - As I said before, Wisconsin is prime Clinton land, she should be winning here, as she should in Ohio.
Gabble,
“I never thought I’d agree with you on anything but I do on this.”
This could be the start of a beautiful friendship….
206 Ripper
If you are going to be sarcastic, at least be sarcastic to the right person.
I am Peter the Punter - or PtP, as I am widely known.
Peter from Putney - or PfP - is a bird of a very different feather, though equally delightful in his own way.
Mix us up again and you’ll be hearing from our lawyers.
A lot of stuff today being posted about spread market makers suspending markets and that being “cowardly”.
I regularly make size markets on political and current affairs. I make money from the spread. I facilitate people’s bets without taking huge risks.
When I am aware but unsure about events and information I pull my backs and lays on that market. I don’t view this as “cowardly”, just sensible. If people like us get wiped out - who will make markets in these niche areas?
Mondays front pages look very grim for Darling, Brown and this whole Labour government.
217. The US media have kept Clinton in it, because unlike Giuliani, she is the only other candidate, which is both to her advantage and disadvantage. It’s to her advantage in that its kept her poll position alive in Wisconsin, but it means she won’t be able to play the expectations game when she loses.
Plus, I wouldn’t agree that Obama hasn’t had many attacks: he’s had the race card played against him, he’s had the Muslim madrassa thing, the secret smoker thing, and the Rezko connection. The thing about it though, is that it’s not gaining traction, so it seems he hasn’t been through as much. Clinton is the opposite - every allegation against her has run and run and run. I would say the lesson to draw from this is not to pick the candidate which is “tested” the most, but the one that the mud doesn’t seem to stick to.
I think most people will see the Northern Rock story as the government being forced to save a bank in trouble. At worst people will think Brown and Darling have dithered, if they care at all.
318 - “Clinton is the opposite - every allegation against her has run and run and run.”
Which allegations are these?
317 “Mondays front pages look very grim for Darling, Brown and this whole Labour government.”
Probably better than headlines about Labour’s Sharia Law Bonds.
319.Yep, with the present tax burden, public spending squeeze, mortgage increases and *real* inflation causing financial pain to many. No one will care if this huge financial commitment will impact on their everyday lives…..
318 - That is a fair enough opinion to have, and my view of Obama has gone up a lot during the primaries. He has shown an ability to withstand fire and a certain amount of ruthlessness needed to win. He inspires idealism, but he is not simply an idealist.
However although some things have been raised they have been very much in the background. He has not come under sustained fire (except by Bill in SC, and that failed because it was so inept) because Hillary can’t go negative on him in a Dem Primary. The General will be completely different. There will be lots of ads running trying to smear him. I think they will probably back-fire and that Obama would still win. However I think there is a certain amount of risk for the Democrats, a risk that is probably worth the potential reward but a risk nonetheless.
320. Suppressing her senior thesis contents, the cattle futures trading, her conflict of interest with Rose Law Firm doing work for Arkansas state, her dismissive remarks about women that “bake cookies”, being subpoenaed for the Whitewater scandal, making false claims in the investigation of Travelgate.
Oh, and the funding of the Clinton library for another one. Why anyone thinks that the Republicans will have more to use against Obama is beyond me, and contrary to all evidence.